


After the End

by missema



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Death, Depression, Destruction, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Love, Sacrifice, Survival, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles for the extended cut endings of ME3<br/>These can fit into the series of Allyse Shepard, but aren't Allyse/Kaidan specific.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mobius Strip (Control)

"Shepard's dead."  EDI announced to Joker, shortly after the Normandy crash landed.

"We don't know that."  Joker insisted.  "She could have escaped."

"No.  Shepard's dead."  EDI said, the finality in her tone alarming Joker.

"EDI, do you know something?"

It had flitted around the edge of her consciousness, but when she tried to examine the source, the reason behind making her statement, it flitted away from her mind, like snow drifting on a breeze.  Deep within her, Shepard had touched the parts of her that had come from the remains of Sovereign and it recognized her, the presence.  "I cannot explain it, but I just know.  I can feel her loss, a transcendence."

"I hope you're wrong."  Joker mumbled.

"I'm not."  EDI said.

 

Shepard had become more, and yet less.  It had been overwhelming, terrifying to let go of her mortal body, the only life she had known, the only life she could have ever imagined for herself before this.  A crowd of hundreds of thousands, millions, trillions of voices, echoes of the past, and then silence, the world reshaped in her mind.

Indoctrinated agents everywhere began rebuilding, Shepard overseeing every step, watching over them as they helped the ones she'd left behind, the people she'd loved in her last state of being.  They spread the word, Shepard was dead, had died on the Citadel, but the Reapers were gone.  It was a half-truth, she had died, but only to become more, to ensure peace.  The Reapers, her Reapers, weren't gone, but were at least, gone from sight.  There would come a time when those who remembered were all dead, and the woman she was had been reduced to less than legend.  Then, they would come back, and check, take care of the citizens of the galaxy, when they no longer feared them and would attack.  It would take lifetimes, but she could wait, time was merely an idea to her, a blink of an eye that took millennia, a night that lasted seconds.

Shepard was endless.


	2. I Close My Eyes (Synthesis)

Sometimes I wake up gasping for air, though the doctors say there is nothing wrong with my body anymore, just my mind.  Night after night, I try not to sleep, not to give into the void that awaits me, but ultimately I fail.  I always fail.  Things are supposed to be better now, the war is over, people are rebuilding, a wholy galazy working together and the Reapers are our allies.  Before, I would have scoffed at the very idea, but now, I can feel _Shepard_ in the back of my head, the knowledge of every past and all the people that came before stuffed into my mind until it feels like it's going to burst.

As if my migraines weren't bad enough already.

Instead of laying back down on the bed, I get up and check my messages.  There's the one I knew would be there, and a few others.  I check the expected, opening a vid mail from EDI.  She's never sent regular mail; I think she likes recording herself.

"Kaidan, Joker and I will be over at noon to check on you.  If you need any items, inform us and we will bring them to you.  We'll see you soon."  She said, her speech softened with the inflection of emotions she hadn't understood before.

Strange how she's taking care of me, but I think she feels a responsibility to Shepard.  Shepard.  Just thinking the name hurts, so I try not to most of the time.  Closing my eyes, I move to the living room of the tiny prefab I moved into during the rebuilding.  I'm still on active duty, but it's just light work on orders from Admiral Hackett.  He needs all the hands he can get, but so many of us are damaged, confused and grieving.  There were a lot of losses on all sides.

My whole family is gone.  My father was killed in the early days with the resistance, I found out that he was trying to save some people as they were fleeing.  One of them made it, and recognized me after word got back that I was a Spectre.  She sent me an email, telling me what he did for her and her family, it made me proud of the old man.  There was never any word of Mom when I got back to Earth, and there still hasn't been.  She's missing and presumed dead, with a long list of others.  Both Shepard and Anderson are gone, and while we found Anderson's remains, there's no sign of Shepard.

If it weren't for the circuitry lining my face, for the strange green eyes that replaced my brown ones, I might have some hope that she was still alive.

This was her gift, to all of us.  Peace, understanding, an end and a promise for it to never return.  She became a bridge, a way to a new kind of life, but I don't have much of one without her.

I've never been religious, never thought about it much.  I could never understand much of it, thought my mom had been raised with religion, she never forced me to join her.  Nowadays, I think about the concept of heaven, of hell.  If there's a place where Shepard is now, where my parents get to greet her as the daughter in law they never got to meet, where my missing friends and colleagues are all assembled, a place where half the galaxy is resting together, then I don't want to know about it.  A place like that would leave too little here for me, and it's hard enough to get through each day.

When EDI and Joker arrive hours later, they come in without knocking, using the keycode EDI programmed for me.  I don't speak, don't even sit up.  She opens the shades and Joker sits down, launching into an inconsequential story about what was going on in the marketplace.

I close my eyes and let the sound of his voice wash over me.  I can barely breathe.  One day, this won't be enough anymore.  She saved me, but I told her that I couldn't lose her again.  I'm just waiting.


	3. So Be It (Fight)

My name is Dr. Liara T'Soni, and I am dead.

Kaidan was propped up on my arm as Shepard forced us both to rejoin the Normandy.  I remember his weight, the way he felt, heavy and injured, but still alive next to me.  She wanted him, wanted both of us to live, and it felt as if time stopped in that moment.

I watched her run towards that beam of light, this woman, my personal hero that I loved as a friend, as more than that for so long.  We'd never been, she'd picked Kaidan, and it was to him that she gave her final words of love, her goodbye.  But I was there, she wanted me by her side, and I was proud to fight with her.

"Someone made it onto the Citadel.  We have to give them time to get the arms open."  Admiral Hackett's voice came over the comms as he spoke to the fleet.  He didn't need to say who that someone was.

When the Citadel opened up, the arms spreading wide as if it were in bloom, we expected something.  All that work, all of that effort for the past few months.  We waited, held our collective breath, and watched the sky as the fight raged on.

Time seemed to slow, then speed as the battle went on and on all around.  Above Earth and on the surface, there were explosions and fires sending light streaking through the darkness.  There were ships of all kinds and models shooting and falling, turians and Reapers, asari and geth.  We waited for Hackett to give us another order, to say something.  We waited for the Crucible to do whatever it was intended to do, to set the sky ablaze, to end the war and maybe all of us, so long as it took the Reapers out too.

Nothing happened.  Whatever was meant to happen, just didn't, and the fight simply just kept on, growing more desperate by the moment.  I felt the ship shake from shot after shot that Joker was no longer able to dodge, heard the fire alarms echoing through the hallways.  I sat with Kaidan in the medbay, holding his hand.  It wasn't something I'd normally do, but I needed the comfort and his heartbreak was written all over his expressive face.  Maybe it was a comfort to him as well, since he didn't reject it.  The way his hand felt in mine is one of the last things I remember, mostly soft and warm, calloused in a few places, but slightly larger than my own with blunt fingertips and trimmed nails, masculine.

In the end, it was remarkably similar to when the first Normandy went down, only this time there was no Alchera, no place to escape, no Shepard helping us all get off the ship.   Whatever she'd done or tried to do hadn't worked, and we were all out of options.  A Reaper fired on the ship, a shot so close even the ever nimble Joker hadn't been able to avoid completely, followed by several more, until there was no air left, nothing for the kinetic barrier to seal off.  I couldn't feel Kaidan's hand in mine anymore and everything was shrouded in darkness bleaker and more consuming than night.

My name is Dr. Liara T'Soni and I am no more.  We lost the war with the Reapers.


	4. Heartbeat (Destroy)

"We honor our friend and leader, Commander Shepard.  The best amongst all of us."  Garrus said, looking over at Kaidan as he spoke.  He was holding the placard that had her name on it, the one they were going to put on the memorial wall.

"I love Shepard.  She made tremendous sacrifices to save us all, time and time again, without thought to herself.  Her selflessness, her steadfast belief in doing the right thing - those are just a few of the things I love about her."  Kaidan couldn't continue, sentiment making his throat close fast around his words.  He had never said out loud to many others what Shepard meant to him, but this wasn't the right time.

This all felt wrong, it felt false to Kaidan, but he couldn't explain it.  Everyone around him needed an end, to put the names up of everyone they'd lost and to start mourning in their own way.  He held onto the placard, looking down at it, running his fingers over the letters.  SHEPARD.

"We have to get back to Earth."  He said, stopping short of putting it up on the monument.  "I just need to get back."

He couldn't do it, wouldn't do it.  There was a drumming in his ears, like a heartbeat, faint but steady whenever he thought of her.  He hoped that getting closer to Earth, closer to her would make it louder, help him find her and prove that she was still alive.  

Garrus watched Kaidan go back to the Starboard Obs, after the group broke up.  After a few moments of deliberation with himself, he went in after his friend, who was still holding the strip that said "Commander Shepard" on it.  Standing with his back to the door, Kaidan didn't turn around at his entrance, but kept gazing at Shepard's name, as if he were trying to commune with it.

"Can you feel it too?"  Garrus asked in a whisper.  "She's still out there, isn't she?"

"Yeah."  Kaidan said, breaking into a smile.  "Yeah.  Shepard's still alive."

Garrus let out a laugh that rang with his relief.  It wasn't as crazy as it seemed if Kaidan felt it too.  They'd better get back to Earth quickly, because whatever had happened to her, Shepard would want to know that the Normandy and her crew were, for the most part, alright.


End file.
